OSLO kaffe bar, Coffee, Mitte

I was picking my way through the wreck that is Chausseestrasse, trying to get to Bondi Cafe. Two women walked passed me, lovingly cradling white paper coffee cups with what looked like the word “Oslo” stamped on them.

There was a lot of love in that embrace between woman and cup. As I turned the corner onto Eichendorffstrasse, there it was: OSLO kaffe bar. The styling of the cafe vaguely reminded me of Nordic Bakery in London but when I stepped inside there was no food bar a heel of dried up loaf cake.

“Do you sell food in here?” I asked “Like croissants or cake?”
“We used to have croissants.” the barista replied “but our focus is coffee.”

I looked at the black board behind her and tried to work out what I wanted. Instead of Lattes and Cappuccinos, there were ratios 1:0, 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 indicating the ratio of espresso to milk. I order the 1:2 single origin Ethiopian coffee for €2.90 (the blend is €2.60).

I was told to expect a strong blueberry aroma. A comment which brought to mind my wine diploma, when a red wine might be described as having tobacco and leather notes. Attributes I could find no trace of when tasting the wine. Looking at my classmates, they would all be vigorously agreeing with the pronouncement while I scratched my head in wonder.

I wasn’t expecting blueberries, I’m no Roja Dove. But as I sipped from my Oslo cup, the coffee seemed at first vegetal, then savoury and finally there it was: blueberries! I didn’t know if it was the barista’s power of suggestion or if I my nose is evolving. A special cup of coffee indeed, which I drank on the slightly raised platform with nostalgic furniture listening to Björk on vinyl (which if “you ask nicely” you can buy- there is no end to the depths of hipness in Berlin).

OSLO was using Landliebe milk when I was there which is not as good as the non-homogenised Ökodorf Brodowin milk used at The Barn but a huge step up from the long life stuff that a lot of places insist on using (Something I don’t understand? Fresh organic milk retails for €0.90, a coffee is usually €2.50 plenty of space for a healthy margin).

Lovely place, which would be even better if there was something to eat alongside my blueberry coffee.

If you like coffee you should also try The Barn, they also sell the Aeropress but I don’t know for how much. Then there is Bonanza Coffee Heroes which distributes coffee to a lot of places but is also kind of the grandaddy of the flat white Berlin thing.

I’ve tried Oslo before and actually found the usage of Landliebe quite disappointing. Landliebe is not organic, it’s not even fresh milk, the name and marketing concept just try to imply a somewhat “better” milk, while it’s actually as shitty as any other.

As far as I know it’s not – the brand is getting some of the worst judgements when tested, especially for the whole image, which suggests some kind of high quality, farmers product, when in the end it’s only packaging.
It’s certainly fresher than many, but far from organic.

Hello there! Kristian from Oslo Kaffebar here. The Landliebe milk is indeed fresh, and we find it to be the best tasting milk out there. The problem with the organic milk is that it is a bit unstable. Sometimes fantastic, sometimes not so great. We have tested different organic milks next to the Landliebe, and we find the Landliebe to be better, all things considered.
So for the time being we’ll stick to the Landliebe.
We have bought an oven, and from next year we’ll always try to have freshly baked croissants, brioche, etc throughout the day. We also now have cakes and banana bread from Victoria in Augustrasse.
With us, coffee comes first, but we are working on extending our food offering.
On the coffee part, we are planning to use our newly aquiered Bunn filter coffee maker to make really good batch brews of filter coffee (we still do Aeropress and Chemex). We’ll also buy a 3rd Mazzer Kony grinder to be able to offer three types of espresso. Our Bonanza Oslo blend, a single origin espresso (from Bonanza, 5 Elephants, Tim Wendelboe, etc), and a 3rd espresso (preferably something “special” and limited. Could be from Stumptown, Intelligentsia, TW, Coffee Collective, Koppi, kaffitár and such).
Hope you guys found this info useful.

Landliebe is only “fresh” i.e. what would used to have been called pasteurised, homogenised milk when the packaging claims (along with the word “frisch” – “fresh”) to be “traditionell hergestellt” – “traditionally produced”. This means ‘just pasteurised’ and not the new even-worse-than-UHT-method which almost all milk produces exclusively use, while claiming the milk is ‘fresh’ it stays ‘fresh’ (i.e. it doesn’t go ‘off’) for about 5 weeks, but won’t have any minerals or vitamins etc. in it after about 2 weeks.

I’ve never seen “traditionally manufactured” Landliebe milk anywhere in Berlin since the change about 2 years ago, I didn’t even know they produce it, but the Landliebe website claims they do both. So at best, Landliebe is expensive bog-standard milk, at worst, it’s bog-standard sub-UHT milk in smart packaging, in a deposit bottle (I’m a sucker for glass bottles, but not for Landliebe though), expensive to fund the advertising featuring buxom women in dirndls who supposedly milk the calves by hand in the bavarian alps (I’m a sucker for buxom women, dirndls, and the bavarian alps, but not for Landliebe!).

Oh, I note that the “real (non sub-UHT)” milk from Landliebe is in Tetrapaks. Oh dear!

I’m lactose intolerant! No, seriously. Yes, seriously, though I can survive a packet of yoghurt or five.

I see through marketing shit quite easily – and apart from that, I do occasionally make my own yoghurt using a the lovely GDR product “Majomat”, a compound noun for “Yoghurt Maker from Magdeburg”, which is essentially a enamel saucepan without handles, with some very slight heating in it, a LED, a plastic lid and about 6 glass jars with lids. And an instruction booklet and box both featuring a 1980s Asian woman looking vaguely erotic while eating her home-made yoghurt out of one of those glass jars.

And you can’t make yoghurt (properly) with UHT milk, and you certainly can’t make it either from this “stays fresh longer” shit.

There was some kind of vague uproar in the press here a few years ago when everyone’s “proper” milk went shit due to the understandable desires of supermarket and dairy bosses to make shedloads more money by merging the “advantages” of UHT milk (stores until almost the next nuclear war, and would probably survive it as well) with those of fresh milk (is sold in a bottle, is kept in a fridge, has fancier packaging, and doesn’t taste quite as rubbish as UHT and therefore brings back no memories of rainy scout camps in Essex in the early 1990s).

The bit about it having no nutritional value at all after a few weeks of being in that fridge is what they forget to tell you, but at least it doesn’t go bad in your tea and/or smell of parmesan/vomit/etc., so it probably doesn’t bother many people.

So if you want “real” pasteurised milk (I’m sure someone will go all “real milk is raw” on me, but I don’t want to die of botulism) go for the stuff where “traditionell hergestellt” (“made traditionally”) is on the carton/bottle. It doesn’t have to be organic to be like this. Or, indeed, more expensive than the “modern” “fresh” stuff, though sometimes it is.

Glad to be of service. I don’t know what your German’s like, but http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESL-Milch gives a good explanation of “Extended Shelf Life” milk, which is now generally sold as “fresh” milk here. ESL-brands included the most expensive ones: Bärenmarke, Landliebe, Weihenstephan, as well as cheapo stuff from Lidl, Aldi, Netto, Penny etc., and some organic milk as well. “Aldi, Lidl, Penny and NP (belongs to Edeka) do not sell any fresh milk any more, only ESL milk which only goes off after ca. 4 weeks”.

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About The Blog

Hello! My name is Suzy. This blog is about discovering Berlin through its eateries. I take it one restaurant or shop at a time and post on the blog once a week. I vary where I eat to have a have a mix of high and low end places. My goal is to find the special places, the ones worth seeking out and show and tell you all about them. Read more...